The good thing about middle names is that they confer a degree of uniqueness.

I didn’t know it at the time, when I first learned to identify with M. T. H. S. on my Inchmarlo socks, but this uniqueness would come in handy when I entered the world of namespaces.

My older brother Christopher was given our paternal great grandfather’s name William.

When I came along the presiding authority in these matters, probably my father’s mother, decided that both grandfathers had to be honoured equally, thus I got two middle names Thomas Harold. I wonder how they decided the order.

Later my younger brother Timothy would inherit our father’s name Noel as his middle name.

All boys names because we were boys, but my mother did confide to me once that it had already been decided that if I was a girl I would be Janet.

Maybe with my grandmothers first names. Janet Hilda Sarah Scott.

Janet would come in handy later as an imaginary sister when I started to write about the Creative Union.